pretentious
/prɪˈtɛnʃəs/ · pret·en·tious
adjective
- Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, or sophistication than is actually possessed. His pretentious speech about quantum mechanics left the audience bewildered.
- (of a work of art, literature, etc.) Overly elaborate or self‑consciously artistic, lacking genuine substance. The novel's pretentious prose obscured its simple plot.
noun
- A person who pretends to be more important, cultured, or knowledgeable than they really are. She dismissed the pretentious at the gallery as more concerned with image than art.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Did you know? The term gained notoriety in the Victorian era, where satirists used it to lampoon the era's self‑important social climbers, and it appears in Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' as a critique of aesthetic excess.